Tuesday, October 07, 2008

An OLOGBA for the Society

I, your self-appointed society president, have taken it upon myself to compile a list of all acronyms currently or formerly in use in the garden blogging world (GBW) to aid all new, current, former and future garden bloggers and readers of garden blogs in the understanding of same as they apply to garden blogs.

Without further ado and discussion the following are presented for the membership to consider. There will not be a quiz.

AGB – Austin Garden Bloggers. Far and away the largest congregation of garden bloggers is within and around the city of Austin, Texas, so they shall be referred to as AGB’s

BTS - Black Thumb Syndrome. According to Kate from Gardening Without Skills, there are some people whot are afflicated with this. No matter how hard they try not to, they kill green things. They've been trying to get the AMA to recognize it as real for years so they can go through their health insurance for therapy. It's quite sad really.

CCG – Cold Climate Gardening. One of the pioneers of garden blogging, Kathy Purdy named her blog Cold Climate Gardening because she gardens in a cold climate, USDA Hardiness Zone 4. She has already reported frost this year.

CGB – Chicago Garden Bloggers. Though not as numerous as AGB’s, the CGB’s have graciously volunteered to host the next GBSF the weekend of May 29 – 31, 2009 in the windy city, Chicago, Illinois. Please, oh please does the event include a visit to the CBG?

DIPT - Did I Plant This. First coined by Beckie from Dragon Fly Corner, this is nother syndrome some gardeners seem to suffer from which causes them to forget what they planted, and thus they are often happily surprised when a pretty flower shows up in their garden that they didn't remember planting.

EGG - Egregious Garden Gloating. Identifed by Eliz. from Gardening While Intoxicated, this is when one gardener gloats in the presence of other gardeners about his or her better weather, plants, flowers, climate, soil, etc. An EGG violation is scored from one to ten, with ten being reserved for the most egregious violations. This is very similar to EGT, Egregious Garden Taunting.

GADS – Garden Attention Distraction Syndrome. An affliction that most, if not all, gardeners suffer from, the primary symptom being the inability to focus on one garden task until it is done. Instead the gardener moves from task to task, as they are distracted by one plant and then another, like bumblebees flitting from flower to flower.

GBBC – Garden Bloggers Book Club. This is a now-defunct book club formed to promote garden bloggers reading and posting about a garden book selection every two months.

GBBD – Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day. GBBD occurs on the 15th of every month when garden bloggers post pictures and lists on their garden blogs of what is blooming in their gardens on that day and then leave a comment on the GBBD host blog, MDG, so we can find them and pay a virtual visit to see what they have in bloom.

GBSF – Garden Bloggers’ Spring Fling. A meet-up of garden bloggers from near and far that occurs in the spring. The first GBSF was hosted by several AGB’s in Austin, Texas in April 2009. A grand time was had by all. The second annual GBSF will be in Chicago the weekend of May 29 – 31, 2009.

GR - Garden Rant. One of the few garden blogs with an actual manifesto, they are 'uprooting the gardening world' one post at a time.

GWI - Gardening While Intoxicated. The place to find out about gardening in Buffalo, NY, where EAL swears there is not snow on the ground nine months out of the year. If there was snow on the ground all the time, that would be a good reason to garden while intoxicated.

SLOP – Straight Line Obsessive Planting. This is a disorder that some gardeners, especially those who grew up planting vegetables, suffer from which causes them to instinctively plant nearly everything in a straight line. This creates a disaster when the SLOP affected gardener attempts to plant tulips bulbs. At least one garden blogger refers to this as Always Neat And Lined-Up.

WOO – Window of Opportunity. A gardening WOO is the perfect amount of time for a gardener to actually work in their garden without interruption and feel like they got something done.

WUT – World’s Ugliest Tomato. And yes, I did grow the world’s ugliest tomato this year! Some bloggers may have attempted to compete, but in the end the WUT in my garden prevailed as the one and only WUT.

If any members know of any acronyms that have been inadvertently left off this list, please raise your hand and reply with comment so the missing acryonym can be added to this list, which will hereby be known as the OLOGBA (Official List Of Garden Bloggers Acronyms).

There's HHSBP - Horticultural Hypochondriac Syndrome by Proxy (thinking your plants are diseased when they are not) and OGS - Obsessed Gardener Syndrome (worrying about the health of your garden more than your own health or that of your family).

Dear Madam Self-appointed President, I must say that you have compiled a complete and concise list of many am seeminly all garden bloggers superstitions and maladies. Since you also seem to be the self-appointed Secretary my I be one of the first to commend you for your efforts.

I'm so glad you created this lexicon; I have trouble keeping up with acronyms although I find them to be extremely useful when trying to post from my iPhone. (How do young people manage with those silly so-called keyboards? Oh yeah. They abbreviate.)

Thanks for the shout-out. If you're going to include the acronym for my pen name (M Sinclair Stevens BTW), you should include MMD (Mr. McGregor's Daughter) one of the CGBs organizing GBSF 2009.

OMG! I didn't realize that GBBC was DOA. That's what I get for never getting around to participating. LOL

Hi Carol, present and accounted for. This was so funny. I love that you collected all the information and made it so humorous. My fav acronym is GAD$. I am afflicted. Thanks for the linkage love too.~~Dee

Reading your fun post is a good way to start the day, President MDG! The acronyms will also be handy for Twitter - staying under the character number limit is hard for those of us who write comments as long as some posts.

Thanks for linking to me, and for all the links - somehow I missed PLANTS when it was new, and your advice for the beginning of the chronological year works well now for we AGB's who wait until autumn to renew and reorder our gardens.

Annie at the Transplantable Rose

The comment from MSS implies there was an experiment in comment format? Personally I've always liked the separate pop-up box, because that way the original post is still visible.

Carol, what fun. I love these and think we are lucky to have acronyms to express ourselves. I have one-DIPT Did I Plant This?. Usually seen more in the spring than at other garden times. When you get them all collected, I will print them out to have as a reference. Thanks

How about BTS for Black Thumb Syndrome - Those of us that are afflicated with this know it's a very real syndrome. No matter how hard we try not to, we kill green things. We've been trying to get the AMA to recognize it as real for years so we can go through our health insurance for therapy. It's quite sad really.

This is why you are the President, Carol--you have such a great memory for all these details! I did have one I posted about, too--EWS (Empty Wallet Syndrome), but that is similar to your GAD$, which sounds much cleverer:) I think I have every syndrome you've ever discussed here...I think I'd better go lie down for awhile.

wherein all the plants get confused and act like it's March instead of October.

NONE of the leaves have started turning or dropping and that's unusual even for Houston. We've had enough cold (okay--COOL) fronts for some of the non native trees to show SOME color!...and the natives aren't turning brown or dropping at all.

Dear Carol, thank you!!! You made my 'blogging life' much more easy. All those acronyms and no answers to find anywere and then I found the light.... Thank you Carol for enlighten me / xoxo TyraTYRA'S GARDEN

Carol, This is a brilliant post, and such vivid applelations for all the things we suffer from in and around the garden, and amongst the blogs. I am especially grateful for the mention of GBSF with a date!

Carol, thank you, I had been feeling distinctly iffy about diving in to the world of garden blogging, it can all seem a little intimidating, so many great blogs, why would anyone add another, and then I found this. It made me laugh, and reminded me that gardeners are, for the most part, generous and humorous.

For example, just today I received an email from a co-worker in China that ended with BR. Looked it up, "Bathroom" ?? After a little digging, I found "Best Regards". But still not sure what she really meant to say....

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